Transcripts
1. Course Introduction: Hello. My name is Bernie Raffi. I'm an award winning professional photographer and instructor based in the UK on Welcome to my course on creative portrait photography. In this course, I'll be demonstrating how you can easily achieve more professional and more creative results when taking portrait's. I think you will find this very entertaining course as well as informative. And the reason I say that is because most of the videos of fun practical live sessions with models, families and Children on by example they walk you through the process of taking Great Portrait's. There's a wide variety of portraiture on display in this video and lots of different styles . There's many outdoor location sessions using natural light indoor sessions using window light indoor and outdoor off camera flash sessions on a great tip for better results. Using onboard flash, there's maternity sessions with the gorgeously beautiful eight month pregnant Katie you may well have seen on a previous course. There's some fun ideas to for creating specific types of images, plus an all important video explaining portrait. Lighting patterns also demonstrate many useful tips and tricks along the way, for example, how to make even better use of top shade. How to get great expressions from your subjects and so one. At the end of this course, you'll be armed with all the information you need for creating beautiful portray It's on. You'll be well on the way to becoming a better portrayed photographer, and that, in turn, will give you more confidence with your subjects. This course is designed for beginners and intermediate photographers who will make to take photos of people but feel maybe that they're poor traits are so far, not quite as good as they hoped on. You want to take their skills to the next level on, you know, dramatically improve their portrait photographer. Anyway, thanks for your interest in my creative portraiture course. It's been about six months in the making, and so, of course I'm very excited that it's now ready. So I do hope you always excited as I am. If you're ready to learn Maura and enroll for the course, go ahead and hit that in Mull button, or at least take a test drive by using the three preview feet. Feature hope to see you in the course. Well, I won't actually see you, but you know what I mean by for now,
2. Camera & lens Portrait Settings (repeated from previous course): well, we're here again at the Leighton Buzzard narrow Gauge railway. It just so happens that John Travolta was making a film a few days ago nearby, and he paid a visit with his son and took him on the train. How about that? It's a shame I wasn't making this film when he was here. Maybe he could have had played a starring role in it. Anyway, In this video, I'm going to be talking about the camera settings I use for Paul Traits. Now, when taking photos of people, many factors come into play. So although this film is primarily about the camera settings I use on which I think the best, I'll also be talking about other aspects of portraiture. It almost goes without saying that the light is probably the most important factor in portraiture, along with the background on Do you know your subjects expression? So I will touch or no subjects a little bit. But really, I want to concentrate on the camera and the lens settings, my own personal preference for poor traitors to get that great subject isolation by blowing the background. If you get it right, it can really make the subject pop out of the image and focus of viewers. Eye on the subject. On the other hand, you might be on holiday site. I want to show your subject near the famous background, So in that case, you don't want the background to be a blow of patent colors. You wanted to be recognizable as a famous building or landmark in this film. Now I'm going to ignore that type of scene in favor of standard type portraiture. If you've watched my other films, you'll know that to blur the background, you do need a large aperture that is a small F number. So to start off with, I'm going to set the camera to aperture priority F 2.8 on the lens. If your lens doesn't have such a wide aperture, just use the largest one you have that that is the small, you know, the widest aperture. If I'm taking photos of a couple and I was quite close up, I wouldn't use such a large aperture switch to about F four to make sure both of them were in focus for three or more people on to close down the aperture even further to a 5.6, or FAA, depending on how many people in the photo for a really big groups such as All the guests at a wedding are Jews F 11 and Focus about 1/3 or half way into the group. Today I'm using an 85 mil F 1.8 Nick Orleans great for portraiture as it allows me to stand further back and still get in a fairly close up short by using a longer focal length and standing further back for portrait, the perspective or better on, I'll get Mawr. Flattering photos. I've said it before, and I'll say again, we all want to look good in our photos, so you should avoid getting in too close, especially for those head and shoulders time shots. As the face can become distorted, I'm going to be taken some portrait of Sophia here. We're already in some lovely light because it's a cloudy, overcast A, and we've got these branches covering us, and so that will give us, um, some top shade when it comes to the light. I'm not prefer to use natural lion with open shade or top shade, but if if I'm just out in the open, and I don't have any anything covering. Subtracting the light from above. I'll tend to use a reflector on if I don't have a reflector, are used feel flash. So that's my mess. My preferences top shade on, then reflector and then fill flash. So what about the Mitre mode? Well, usually I'm in evaluative or metrics major mode. That's more. That's what I tend to use most of the time. But in this case, I think I'll go to spot me, too, because I talked about spot metering on another film on. We'll give that a try to see if it works. Actually, I've just had a thought. Instead of using my fast 85 mil lens to start off with, I'm going to use this 18 to 200 Nikon lens on this is a variable aperture. Linse, similar to lenses that come with most cameras these days, are going to set it to 35 mil focal length on the aptitude it's given May it is F 4.2, so lots of the short with this lens, and then we'll compare it to the one with the 85 mil, right? I'm having to get in a bit closer now because of the focal length. That looks reasonable, but I think we'll see a big difference when compared to the next shot. Have now switched to the 85 mil lens, which is a prime lens. Obviously on. I've set the appetite to F 2.8, not when shooting at these very wide apertures. You have to be very careful about focusing. Not normally. I use the focus and recomposed method, but when you taking portrait this close and that such wide apertures, I find personally it's best to use one of the off center focus points on focus on the eyes . That's the most important thing, because when you look at a portrait, the first thing you notice is a person's eyes, so it's best to get the eyes in focus. Just give this a try that I might have to move out of the shop as I don't want to be too close. Actually, no, it's fine about it with a smile. Look past me now. Yeah, this is a much better portray. The blurred background really helps toe isolate Sophie from the background on as a viewer, your eyes are drawn in towards ERM or also if we compare the photo side beside her face looks slightly slimmer, partly because I'm standing further back and so have a different perspective, but also because she's turned a face like away from me. But look at her upper arm that also look slimmer, doesn't it? When here's a shot, why are Sophie to look away from the camera? She is looking rather pensive, but a lovely photo nonetheless. Why not try something slightly different in the way opposing? We've still got some nice light with the overhanging branches, but this time it's going to be a full rent shop. So if it's sitting against a tree, nice, relaxed pose. No, she's got one leg up on the one leg up on the grass. The other ones, slightly further down, always makes a nice kind of pose. Let's give this a try. Have to come quite a long way back. There's a full and shop. Come back even further. Okay, Looking good. Hezb lying about a little bit in the wind mind does that occasionally as well. Oh, now look past me so and I looked down at the grass. He's turned out pretty well. I like sideways seated poses and also like it sometimes if the subject doesn't actually look at the camera, notice both the blood foreground and background giving us given to us by an aperture of F two. You can actually see the depth of field running through the image right away. I like sometimes to get out of focus highlights in the background, which you can see here between the trees. I want to make use of this glassy slope here, and I put Sophie lower down and I'll take a photo from higher up that is going to be a very close up shop. Now I've set the aperture to its maximum of F 1.8, and that's going to give me a very shallow depth fulfilled. So I certainly won't be using focus of recompose. I'll just use one of the outside focus areas. The other problem is sometimes in these very shallow depth of field, you get one eye and focus on one. I slightly blurred. So what you want to do is focus on the nearest I. I just changed my focus point. This gives us a lovely portrait. He probably can't see on your screen, but her hair and the far shoulder has gone very soft, as has the actual shoulder itself. And that's because of the shallow depth of field. By the way, I do prefer landscape orientation images with lots of negative space. There'll be a film about negative space one day on my other course, but here's what the image looks like in a portrait orientation while leaving to you to decide which you prefer. Notice, by the way, that I've dropped off part of her head to give that short a little more impact. Now when you do that, be bold. Don't just chop off the top of the head, Really go for it. So far I've been using some clean, fairly uncut of backgrounds. But in this show I'm going to use that far wall with this brickwork, Andi, because I'm using ah, wide aperture, he should make a kind of pattern, a pattern background. Now we don't have the benefit of top shades, and in fact, I think I'll take three shots a straight a straight photo, then one using reflector, And then I put the flash on the camera and you some fill flash now this reflect about away is a kind of a semi silver in a semi gold on other Jews is our uses generally on a cloudy day. When the sun comes out to Bryant, you're blind, your subject. So I normally use a white reflective for that. In fact, the sun is going in and out, so we have to be quick. But let's start off with a straight shot that's nice in the wind. Bit of light on the back. Beautiful. There's a few elements and make this a lovely photo. First, the wide aperture has thrown the brick work completely out of focus so that we can't help but look at Sophia's face. Secondly, most of the light is behind her, giving us some nice room lighting round her hair, which is blowing in the wind. And finally, she has a lovely natural expression. Now we try one with a reflect with the reflector. Yes, this is going to be more of a close up shot because I'm gonna be I don't have an assistant . How did? That's a lovely light on the face, so I to get in close. I probably should have used a 50 mil lens instead of the 85 to try and keep the same perspective so that we could compare it more easily with the other two shots. But you can see that she has lovely lie on a face with more color and otherwise. Now put the flash on, and it's in the TT A L B L mode, which is a specific nickel mode. If you don't have that, then just use Teoh on. I've got the power dial down to minus 1.7 because we don't want it to look to to kind of over flashed. Let's give this a try, see how it looks the fuel flash or has turned that world a lovely light on her face and catch light in her eyes, comparing the three photos together. Assuming in on these two, they look pretty good. I prefer the light know best in the reflector shop. It's kind of crisper on a lot more natural looking than the one we fill. Flash notice, by the way that I tried to keep Sophie engaged to during the shoot. She's not a model, just a friend, so no, she's not used to doing this, but I kept chatting to her throughout on. That helped to keep her relaxed and to get some lovely, nice expressions. So that gives you an idea about the setting I use for poor traits. I tend to use mostly manual exposure mode, but with the help of the exposure meter dial inside the viewfinder, you know, on top of on the LCD panel on the back LCD. I took some of the shots earlier using spot spot meeting with a little over exposure. But normally I just used the evaluative or metrics meter mode. If you're not that comfortable using manual exposure mode, I'd recommend aperture priority for Portrait's so that you can easily choose wide lens apertures now. Obviously, many of you won't have fast prime lenses, so just set your lens to the widest temperature for individual portrayed, not forgetting to close down the aperture by stop or two for groups, as I mentioned earlier when taking Mawr kind of environmental photos with, say, a famous landmark in the background just choose a smaller aperture. So that's about it. Probably enjoy the film
3. Portrait Lighting Patterns: Oh, yeah, In this film, I'm going to take a look at portrayed lighting and lighting patterns. These patterns are quite fundamental to portray photography, and they're a good first step in understanding portrayed lighting. I'm going to talk about the five most common types of lighting patterns and their characteristics and when to use them on when not to use them. Now, when you use just 1 May night, generally referred to as a key light, it's going to throw a shadow of a part of your subject's face. And those shadows will former lighting pattern. And it's those lighting patterns I'm going to talk about. In order for you to see exactly how the lighting pattern shows itself, I'm going to use to models on with different lighting setups. First of all, I'll use this mannequin head as my model. Okay, I admit she is a bit creepy looking, but if she doesn't nag me to do the washing up or to take the bins out, so I'll be using her along with a small, unmodified video like and that will produce how much shadows on a little face so you'll be able to see the light patterns very clearly. I also had the lovely carnet a model for me. I'll take some off camera flash shots through a small soft box to show how the lighting pattern would look with a softer light in a real life scenario. Now use the smallest soft box because I still want you to clearly see the light pattern. If I used a really large one, the light would be even softer on the pattern. Harder to see. By the way, you may have noticed that Carla Carver has a distinctive facial appearance. That's because she has something called vascular Ehlers Danlos syndrome. It's a genetic disorder, and she's going to talk about it at the very end of the video. So let's get started. Bear in mind that the video light is a small light source, which not only creates hard shadows but also creates speculum highlights that is shiny bits on people's forwards, cheeks and nose. I'll start off with flat lighting now that's where the light is coming from. Directly in front of the subject. It produces quite a flattering light because there's no shadows, and it's really the shadows on a person's face that shows up the skin texture that pause the wrinkles and so on. So because there's no shadows, those facial features don't show so much, almost said facial imperfections. But they're not really. We all have them, but only some more than others. So here's how it looks with the video light directly in front and just above the models I line. And here's how it looks from the side. So now, using the soft box position directly in front but also slightly raised above Carlos I line . As you can see, that looks a whole lot better as the light is softer. Plus, of course, Carlos, much better looking than my mannequin. Having a shadow. This life is quite often use for fashion or for the front covers of women's magazines. It's such a generally speaking. The light from the front will be accompanied by reflector, usually underneath or even at the sides, just a bright in the eyes and to remove any small shadows on the side of the face neck. It's generally referred to his beauty or glamour. Lighting on is very flattering, however. It's no a dramatic type of light, but it's great for head shots anyway. Moving on to the next pattern. Butterfly lighting is when the light comes from directly in front, but much higher up. It's called butterfly lighting due to the small, butterfly shaped shadow that appears under the nose. It's also known as Paramount Lighting. Yeah, the Heart, the Hollywood film studio that Paramount Apparently they used it for years when during their film star or celebrity headshots. So here's how it looks with the video light and also from the side. It's a very flattering time of life, especially when used with a reflector underneath to create a clamshell type lighting. So it's quite similar to flat light that we started off with. But it does create just a little bit more shadow, and when you is probably probably, and with the right subject, it accentuates high cheekbones, so probably more of a feminine like pattern. As I say, the light has to be higher and directly in front of the face. But be careful if your subject has deep eye sockets or maybe wearing false eyelashes, and that, as then there may not be sufficient light in her eyes moving on to the next light pattern. If I move the light around to say around for 30 degrees have now created more shadow on the other side of the face. Plus, there's a small shadow under the nose, which goes to the side. This is called loop lighting, and it's a very popular lighting pattern because it's still very flattering but create a little more shadow and drama on the face, which gives the face of slightly more sculptured look with more depth. He still covers most of the face with light, but because the light is more directional, you get more of a shadow under the nose and on and on the other cheek. The important thing to know is that the cheek shadow on the nose shadow shouldn't meet up. So here's how it looks from the side with the video like. And here's the loop light in Taken of Carla with the soft box, you can see why this is a popular way of lighting a portrait flattering, but with a bit more. That's a technical term on one last thing. Some people do prefer to be photographed from one side of the face or the other, so loop lighting can be used toe like the preferred side, taking the light even further around. You can see that even more of the of the faces now in shadow on the no Shadow has joined up with the chick shadow. This is called member lighting, named after the famous painter he you skylights and high at Windows to create this very lighting pattern. It's easily recognizable because of the triangular highlight that appears under the far higher. He also used it for some of his self portrait, and you can easily see the small triangle of light under his eyes. Here's what it looks like from the side Onda again. Here's the Rembrandt pattern using the soft box. It's quite a dramatic light pattern and so use with caution because for close up head shots , it's not particularly flattering. In fact, it's not often used for beauty. Instead, it's used for more drama on to make portrait look mawr kind of edgy, more creative. However, it would accentuate wrinkles, blemishes and bags under the eyes, so avoid using it for same or mature men and women who want to be flattered. Great, no for creating a powerful, low light black and white image of, say, a crinkly, grizzled old man with with a lived in face. If I meant Now move the light further around. So delight is completely on one side of the face. I end up with split lighting, so the face is completely divided at the nose, 1/2 in shadow on 1/2 islip. If Rembrandt lighting was quite dramatic and split lighting is even more so, it's really used for poor traits except to create a special effect. It's also used quite often for ATH athletes, say, or boxes with rippling muscles and six packs much like my own body, and it shows off those rippling muscles. Sadly, I only have a one pack. Let's take a look at all of them again at the same time flat lighting, butterfly loop, lighting Rembrandt and split. And as you can see as we go from flat lighting to split lighting, the light becomes less flattering and increasingly more dramatic. There's a couple of other important types of lighting styles that are not really like patterns, and they're generally used in conjunction with Loop and Rembrandt lighting, where the faces turned slightly off center. The first is called broad lighting on its when the side of the subject's face nearest the camera is aside. It is being lit. This produces a large area of light on the face on a smaller shadow side. Border lighted makes a person's face look broader or wider, hence the term and can be used on someone with a very slim face to widen it. Most people, though, want to look slimmer. Don't know. It's not wider, so broad light. It is not great for someone who is heavier all down faced. Short lighting is the opposite of board lighting, where the side of the face nearest the camera is the side in shadow. Are you sure? Lighting nearly all the time as it puts more of the face in shadow. It's more sculpting as three D type qualities, and it's slimming and flattering for most people. I don't really like the way broad lighting looks with the whole side of the face lit up, but it's subjective. So you're noticed throughout this course in nearly every case where it's relevant, my subject is looking towards the light instead of away from it in order to create short lighting before I leave you. Let's have a quick word from Carla, so I have a rare genetic disorder called vascular Ehlers Danlos syndrome on its is life threatening. But it causes a lot of us to have the unusual face. Big eyes, little chain, translucent skin on its It is rare, but it seems to be coming out a lot more lately. So that's just a just a quick brief of what it is. And it causes bruising and bleeding and stuff. Okay, so that's about it for portrayed lighting patterns. I hope you found it useful. Thanks very much. Collar being a great model. See you in the next video. Bye for now.
4. Window Light:- Style I - Shooting parallel to window: uh huh. Hi again. This is the first of a three part session on using window light to get great looking pictures. Now other lights involved. So it's nice and simple. Now you'll hear me say throughout the course that the larger the light source in relation to your subjects. The soft of the light. So flight is generally generally preferred for Paul traits, as it tend to improve the look of the subject. Skin on. Unlike a hard light, you avoid harsh shadows and shiny bits on the subjects forward cheeks and nose. You can recognize a hard light, but the hard edges to the shadows. So, for example, although the sun is quite a large light source because it's through 93 million miles away in relation to your subject, it's quite small. And so if you go outside during the day, especially at midday, the shadows from the sunshine would have have a very hard edge to them. Which brings me neatly onto windows were in a lovely local studio with a lovely large window, But even in a small room, there's a good chance you'll have a large window perfect for producing softball. Great light. You have to be careful, though, that the sun's not streaming in. So choose a cloudy day or from a north facing window or south facing one. If you live in the southern at Southern Hemisphere now, there's various ways of using window light you can shoot side on so that you and your subject are the same distance from the window that is your kind of parallel to the window. Give, give or take. Another way is to shoot with your back to the window so that your subject is facing the window or you can even shoot towards the window on. I'll be demonstrating each of these methods in the sequence of three videos. In this first video, I'll shoot parallel to the window for a slightly more dramatic effect. Why is it dramatic? Well, it's because when the light direction is from the side is going to be light on one side of the face and shadow on the other side of the subject's face, like on my face. Now I have the lovely booth with me today, Tomato Wallace on DCI's and wants. Yeah, I'd love to director in a native tongue, but with my schoolboy French we'd probably end up with some very strange poses, so we'll stick with English. Okay, so we'll start with boo, Say, about six feet from the window. That's a good starting point. The closer your subject is to the window, the more contrast will be between the left side of the face on the shadow side, so one or two feet from the window is a little too close unless you're going for a more dramatic contrast. The look, which maybe we'll try later. If she's too far away, the light will go flatter, not as crisp, and it won't be a discernible difference between the lit side of the face on a shadow side . But you know, this could also be quite a flattering type of locks. It will give that a try later to, but also we want the light to come from above. So if your subject is as tall as a window for a seated position so that the light hitzer from, say, about 45 degrees okay, If you've watched my video about lighting patterns, you'll note, I prefer short lighting, where the side of the subject's face closest as a camera is a shadow side. So I'm going to ask Booth to turn her face toward the window slightly. And there you can see that kind of, Ah, lovely s shaped curve on the shadow side of her face, but also for some shots. He's going to turn her body the other way into the room. So, having just turned with your feet towards me, that's it on then. Now look out the window again. Beautiful. And now, because of the light, is skimming across her body, it will. It will skim across the address on the top rather than been exposed to the full glare of the window. Now that's especially important if she's wearing a light colored top or dress any. I catch this. Put that on both you see Now, if you turn with your feet toward may slightly turn now, you can see how the light skims across the top, whereas now, if you turn all the way around towards the light the other way towards a light, you can see there's a chance that the dress the top may blow out. And also if you turn you with your feet towards me again, and now look out the window and with that also facing one way and head facing another that puts the body into a nice position, you know, when compared with the body and head facing the same way. Okay, so we're ready to start taking pictures. Just a little bit of information about my camera settings. I'm in manual mode. I've got a 42.5 F 1.7 lens on the camera, which is the equivalent of an 85 mil. Then, in old film terms, I'm shooting wide aperture with a wide aperture F 1.7 so that I can blow up that night. That not those nice stores in the background to hundreds of a second eso 3 20 Now , if you move closer to the window now, we expect to get a lot more contrast. And if you get in really close Oh, keeping keeping exactly the same. Let's move this back slightly, sleeping exactly the same settings. What we should find is your as I thought, it's It's over exposed, isn't it? Just by maybe one or two stops have exposed. So by reducing the exposure, I should be getting a lot more contrast because of the highly lit side will go darker, which is what we want. But also, the shadow side will start looking very dark as well. So just a few shots, Uh, no shooting. It's a 400 of a second. If you move back a tiny bit, I'll get that lamp in, which looks quite nice. Wow, Look at that. These look great. I love these pictures, but because they are very contrast E, you have to be careful with your choice of subject. Boo is obviously very young with a beautiful complexion. But this type of life is not very forgiving for the more mature amongst us. But you could maybe go for something different and shoots a an older man. Show his lines and the lived in look, get it right and you get real drama. Okay, so now Bo is going to be standing a bit further away from the window. And because of that, it's obviously slightly darker. So I've reduced my shutter speed 260 of us of a second Still f 1.7 eso 3 20 And you know about the settings. I mean, even though I do mention the settings most of the time, when I remember, it has to be said that there know an awful lot of good to you, you know, because in a couple of hours time the light is going to change here. You know you won't be in the same kind of environment, so they're only a rough guide. The important thing is your aperture when when there's no moon, not too much movement involved. It's really the aperture is the important setting if you want to blow out the background. So you know, I'm using a wide open aperture F 1.7, but you know, they set in there, not cast in stone. You know, as I say, the light will change. Your composition will change on, so they're only a general guide. You can't expect to reproduce the exact same look using those exact settings. So, having said that, let's take a few more shots, and now I'll turn in your face a little bit more toward the window that did not turn your whole body toward the window because we're further away. I think we could now turn the whole body in. Uh, okay, so shots look good, but I didn't like the way the bookcase blended into Bo's or booze here. Eso it didn't really separate the hair, the hair enough. So we've dropped on. Ah, white background bear in mind generally, if you should doing this sort shoe in your home, you do want to keep it to a fairly less distracting background. You don't want lots of rubbish, Andi. You know lots of stuff that's lying around in the house. Just move things away from the background to give to keep it nice and clean and not make it too distracting. When I do like these pictures, I have to be honest here and say they're not quite the look I was going for. As the light isn't as flat as I'd hoped. There's still quite a bit of shadow on this side of booze vice. To get a flatter like Boo would need to go even further into the room, and I would have to increase the exposure to compensate. Still, photos look good. That's about it, for this session will follow this one up, shooting with the window behind us and also shooting into the light. That's for the next videos, so thanks very much, both of you, in the next video. For now,
5. Window Light:- Style II - Shooting with the window behind you: hi again, well, continuing with the theme of using window light in this video again with boo, I'll show you another way to shoot. It is on. This is why. No, I often use when I was a wedding photographer, especially if it was raining outside and applied for some unknown reason. Didn't want to get her £3000 dress or wear a muddy, which meant we had to shoot inside in the previous video of the shooting parallel to the window, which meant that one side of booze face always faced into the room, resulting in light and shadow on her face. Now this technique is different in that boo is now going to face straight onto the window, and that will result in a more flattering shudder. Lis flat light, especially as there's no light coming from above to darker her eyes or emphasize shadows under her eyes. So I'm going to be standing with my back to the window on to start off with at least all stand. Our stand very close to the window and boo is going to be a few feet in front of me. It's usually best that you stand with your back is close to the window as possible as the light becomes less crisp on the subject as they move further back into the room. Not necessarily a problem. It all depends on the kind of look you're going for. As in the first film. Avoid any sunlight hitting your subject that will ruin everything. Also avoid a cluttered background. If, for example, does a TV or other paraphernalia in the background maybe use a plain background. You can pick them up quite cheaply. The exposure should be much simpler than in the first film, so I'll use aptitude poverty wide open lens. That's F 1.7 on this lens. I s 0 400 Okay, so all ready to start shooting, and I'll stand with my back to the window. Who is about what? Eight feet 678 feet in front of me. But it's quite a big window. This It depends on how larger window is. Obviously, how much light is coming through the window, which will determine how far your subject is away from the window. So look at that beautiful light on her face. Yeah, admittedly, I could have done better with the background here, but the real point I wanted to make It's the sheer quality of light you can get by having your subject facing straight onto a window. Beautiful, soft, fairly shudder lis light on without using any other external lights. Great. Let's try lift. Bring in that stall in. Just put in your leg up on the store. Yeah, just a simple variety. And opposing here by using a small stall? No, just that. Even though I cropped it at her leg, it placed her body into, um or diagonal. Very nice position. Okay, I'm in manual mode. I thought first of all, our chew in aptitude poverty, but the the exposure of various as I changed vehicle as I change the composition. So on the F 1.7 3/20 of a second higher. So 400. And that way, the light isn't changing. The sun's not coming. It going in and out of the clouds aren't going going across, so the light isn't changing. There's no point in May using aperture priority on having the camera work out the exposure for every single shot. I might as well just keep it on the same exposure. Okay to finish off. I put a white background this time behind boo Andi. She's gonna be sitting and she's changed a top black and white shirt. They see how this looks just gonna be sitting simple, posing public. Very simple photos again. Just demonstrating the quality of light from the window. Notice also the lovely sparkle in her eyes created by the catch light. By the way, if the light comes from around 45 degrees and the catch lights in the 10 2 or 10 past, position in the eyes, I know, then they'll have the position and the height of the light about light. If the light comes from directly in front, as in this case, the catch light should be central in the upper part of the eye. Yeah, okay. A blatantly sexier type of shop, but it does demonstrate the all over great light. Remember I said I was using a white background? Well, you may be wondering why it looks great. Now that always happens toe white backgrounds because the light falls off after its hit. Your subject the only way to get up your nice, clean white background. It's a light it separately. Yeah, these images look great. Don't know. The light is fairly flat and shadow lis providing an all over smooth light quite similar to top shade kind of light. And, you know, you have nice catch light in your eyes on. Do you help us to make them sparkle? With that in mind, it's fair to say that this type of life is quite flattering on so more suitable for us mature people with our line faces and wrinkles, especially when compared to the type of light you get when shooting parallel to the window that we did in the first session. So that's it for this session. Thanks very much again. Booth on in the next video use window light again for a farm or dramatic type of look. So so, you know.
6. Window Light:- Style III - Shooting into the light: Hi again. Finally, in this series on using window light, I'm going to shoot against the light that is towards the window. Now it's not something I do very often, but it can result in very dramatic looking images. The main problem is the exposure. If you meet her for the subject, say, by using spot metering on the face, the windows will blow out, and so you won't see any of the outside detail at all. If you expose for the highlights that is the outside world, it will be nicely exposed. But unless you some flash or reflector to fill the shadows on, pop some light back onto your subject's face, your subject will be in shadow. You'll just get a silhouette. But that's not really the look I'm going for today. There'll be quite a wide difference between the two. Exposures are mentioned, so I'm going to choose a kind of in between exposure, one that doesn't create a pure Silla were keeping some detail in the shadows and also some of the details outside of the window. It won't be perfect because there isn't really any way of getting a perfectly exposed image for the subject and for the window in camber. But you can cheat by taking various shots and combining them using high dynamic range that is, HDR techniques in post processing. One other important thing is not to have your subject look into the room as the light on their face will be too dark and, of course, under exposed. So in these pictures, Boo is going to be looking mainly to the side. And that will just put a bit of light on the edge of a gorgeous little face I've asked her to make opposes a little bit more extreme. We should fit him or with the type of light will get. I've just taken some test shots on if I want the window to blow out so that boo was well exposed. The shutter speed would be around 160th of a second If 1.7 i s 0 200 If I want to retain the detail through the window, the shutter speed would be around two thousands of a second, so I'm going to split. The difference may be used about an 8/100 of a second. I'll be shooting in manual mode. It's really the only way to go here because the light isn't changing in any of the semi auto mode, such as or aperture priority. The camera could adjust the exposure depending on the composition on how much of the window is in the flame on either one that to happen. So let's give it a try now. So, yeah, I'm gonna be shooting towards the window now who has changed into the kind of leotardo type swimsuit, which looks fantastic. Andi, I think I'll probably put it right into the middle of the window, but she's going to be looking, looking out, I don't want to looking into the room otherwise or face will just go completely dark, as you can see now. So what I'd like is to turn her body just so that I can see some light on that, which is perfect there, I think. Come into the middle bit more boat and then turn your face perfect. And you just see that lovely hedge of light on her face. So let's try a few shots like this come back a tiny bit. Use portray orientation. So I actually ended up using a shutter speed of 500 of a second. The view through the window was a little more overexposed, and I wanted. But as I shot in the law, former, I was able to bring back some of the highlights. These type of images look great in black and white. Notice that hint of light on her chest and in particular on a right cheek. That's just what I was looking for. Here's one I took afterwards when booed let her hair down because it's more of a close up. You can really see now that light on her chest on on a right cheek. There's also some lovely light coming through her hair at the back. The one thing I wasn't so keen on was the window frame coming out from her face more noticeable in this image because it's a closer shot. So I had. It is out the frame in photo shop on comported it to black and white. I love the shadow and light here. So for May, this is a great image. So now booze jumped onto the window sill and we're doing something a bit more adventurous. Beautiful pose on The life is lovely on her face. You look fantastic. Yeah, I love this one. The light looks even better. Here is it spreads around her body, legs and face. That's the thing With this type of light, it kind of wraps around the subject and in black and white. Look at that. Fabulous. That's my favorite of the lot. Notice, by the way, the great pose one leg up, one down, but not fully down left hand on the knee so that you only see your hand side on on the arm behind her, allowing her body to be on a diagonal. So that brings us to the end of the final session, shooting against the light. And as you saw, we've got some beautiful dramatic type of images. The exposure is a little bit tricky, but you couldn tried shooting a different exposures. See which one works best. So thanks very much. Booth, we say, Oh, are Maybe we'll see you again. Another sexually? Yeah. Why? For now,
7. How to create an ‘Alpine’ looking portrait, and make more use of 'Top Shade': again. Well, this video is the first in a sequence of videos which I'm gonna be shooting on location with the lovely paper here on this is the first location, which is just a local park. Waterside park. There's a lake nearby. Onda. Uh, the next location will probably be a little bit more more urban, but we'll start off here. We like him. We've got a beautiful, warm, sunny day in April in the UK, which is unheard off. But the sunshine can bring its own problems, especially when it comes to toe lighting. You know, you don't want your subject facing the sun with hard shadows, shiny bits on its cheeks and forwards. Sunlight is great for backlighting, so we'll try and do some of that later on as well. So to start off with, I thought I try and use this lovely tree as a czar foot for our first shoot. Eso Let's see how we get on okay for a first section, I wanted to use the branches of this tree. Now, typically, your subject would be looking out into the light for this type of shoot give as the branches give you a kind of top shade. But one of what I want to try and do now is to turn the image into a kind of Alpine skiing's or winter winter lock. And to do that, I'm going to over exposed the image, because if I just use aperture priority straightaway, normal exposure, Pippa is going to be too dark. So what I'm going to do is increase exposure by probably two, maybe three stops to try and give us that clean, white alpine type of look. So let's say I get on. That's it about you. Go back one step to the right and then go back. I said, They're perfect, right? Yeah, I didn't want the staff hold sunlight coming in on to Pippa's T shirt. These are looking very exposure is perfect. My smooth light on Pippa's face. Yeah, I like these. You can see the effect I was going for. In fact, I used a 2.5 stop increasing exposure notice a shutter speed compared to the first shot, and that gave me a nice boy image with the mostly blown out background notice, though I kept some of the branches into frame paper rather than having a completely blown out. Background. Okay, so now want to use the branches of the trees to provide your typical kind of top shade with people looking out into the light on and because it's in life's any day of ask paper just to stand where she can see her head in the in the shot in the shadows underneath the tree, and that will give us a beautiful room light from the sun. You could just see that now on a hair on. So that will give us a lovely, smooth light on her face because there's no sun on it. The sun is coming from behind, but also we bought this lovely light around here. Let's give that a try now. First of all, noticed her hair is against the sky, and it won't look as good there because we will lose some of that limb like, let's give that a try. Yeah, As you can see, with a bright background, you do tend to lose some of the rim lighting effect. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come up to that. There's a darker tones of the trees behind. I need to be taller or fitter. needs to come down a bit. Actually, if you wanted a new exhibit, you'll come down. That's good. And yeah, amid or dark tone background always works better within light. I like this shot. That's beautiful, Great. And I don't really know us. Bit of an exaggerated female model typos here. Can you imagine if a man did that? But I like it. The light looks great coming through her hair. And anyway, that's it for the first in the session will stay with Pepper for the next location. Bye for now.
8. Idea for adding depth to your images for a more creative portrait: Okay, so we've now moved to the second location in the sequence with people location, session in the park. Andi, I've always liked taking pictures with a sense of death, you know, especially on my family photo sessions. I like to take people taking pictures of people side on with a lot of depth behind them. And this bridge is perfect because it actually goes off to a kind of vanish important as well. The problem is, we got these shadows here. I'm not. I'm not sure how world are gonna work. They may ruin the picture. So I'll try some with shadows on, See how we get on the light on people's faces and perfect. But we've got some could do with probably reflector, which I don't have with me in a moment. But we got some nice light on the hair on. We'll see way get on. I may either switched to the other side or also could try using off camera flash too dark on the whole picture on just a lighter. Face up a little bit more. So let's see how we get on. So our position paper against the bridge year notice she's facing away from the sun, which is why we've got all these shadows as well on the ground. But she's got one leg down on one leg up, and I think that looks quite nice in a pose as well. If you bring, bring your legs up, actually, just to show you something that requires good things. Nice to have one leg down, one leg up. Maybe bring the foot up a tiny bit more about. Let's give it a try. She's got some lovely light on her hair as well. My smooth line on her face. Yes, I like these are not say the composition works really well. People on 1/3 and I like the way the bridge ratings meet up. Go off into the distance. I must admit to cheating a little in these shots. I really needed a reflector to throw more light on to our lovely face. I didn't have one with me, nor an assistant, so just lightened up her face. A little info to shop. I didn't think the shadows on the ground would work at first, but I think they do work and add to the images. Notice I moved a couple of feet to my left, and that's giving May a different composition. It's always worthwhile just changing the camera angle or your position to see if in image can be improved. Okay, we've changed things around a little bit now papers in the same spot, but I'm going to start using off some off camera flash. So the general idea is to under exposure, seen by a couple of stops and just hit paper with a bit of flash from the from the speed light. And that should give us a much more dramatic type of image. The problem is also want to shoot at a white with a wide aperture to blow the background. And if my maxing speed is 1/60 on this camera, and if I want to shoot F two point, I just won't be able to shoot a high, you know, high shutter speed. So I've got two options. I can use high speed sink, which are spoken about in a previous video, or and with what I'm doing now, I put on nd neutral density filter on the lens, and that's kind of just basically make everything darker. And it's really the equivalent of high speed think, except that maybe high speed think is a little bit more convenient to use. You don't need to fit anymore glass over the lens. But generally in terms of results, they're pretty much equivalent. So now I'm going to be able to shoot well F 1.7 160th of a second I s 0 200 You generally do want to use your highest your maximum sync speed on your lowest I. So when shooting in this, we're doing off camera flash outdoors as a general rule. So let's see how we get on the By the way, the speed light is set to ah, half power shooting through a small umbrella, expensive paper looks toward July or has a face generally that direction that looks 1,000,000,000 dropping the exposure has given us a generally move your type of image. While the flash provided good light on her face, this shot works well in black and white. Good contrast on with some graphic elements like the bridge railings and the shadows on the ground. I asked Pepper to remove her glasses. This time she's an experienced model and changed her pose after nearly every shot This Post works but works well with the light hitting the far side of her face again. Here it is in black and white, which I think looks great. Here's a comparison of a natural light short compared to one using off camera flash. You can see how dropping the ambient light exposure and using flash has completely changed the mood of the picture. Not necessarily better. Just different. Some people will prefer the natural light images, others the off camera flash photos. By the way, I don't like the way her hand is dangling down between her legs in the natural light photo . Well, nobody's perfect. Anyway, that's the end of the second session, seeing you in the next one bye for now.
9. Location session by a lake, learn how to overcome a difficult bright background: Hello again. What? We were back on our third location in this sequence in the local park in Leighton Buzzard Onda, we got a beautiful like behind us. Sun is shining. The problem is, we've got some dappled sunlight coming through the trees, which I'm hoping want to be too much of a problem. But I face paper away from the or with her back to the sun so that we've got some nice light on a hair. Also, if I was just a shoot with a normal exposure using, say, aperture, priority paper might be beautifully exposed. But the background, because it's quite dry, it will go fairly, fairly white. Of course I could I could love the exposure, reducing exposure. But then pepper would be too dark. So I'm using some off camera flash. I am reducing exposure by a couple of stops. Andi are lighter using the speed light. My settings are F 1.7 1/60 of a second. I so 200. I've got the neutral density on the camera on the lens as well. If I didn't have that, they're not after shoe, probably about a fight which I didn't really want to do because then the background will be all in focus. So that's the speed light is on about half power. It's more. It's a more powerful speed, like it's a God OCS 83 60 with a separate battery back, which will give us a little bit more like which we need when the sun is shining. Okay, ready to go Told getting up. You've got a bit of sunlight on this leg nearest to May. So maybe put that one down. Unless better here. Or is it? Maybe turned your feet that way? Tiny bit more that let announced it. Yeah, great. And then you can look up this way. Yeah, this has worked out quite well. The light looks good, but spoil a little by the highlight on her shoulder, caused by the dappled sunlight coming through the trees under exposing the ambient light, helped to ensure the highlights weren't completely blind. While I compose on this one, by the way, notice how I composed it so that she is completely within the gap created by the trees either side. Before we go from here, I'll just forgo the speed light and just shoot a couple with natural light just to compare them. See how they look. Just turn your face, Silverman. Water that your left lightly by the other way. Yeah, that's it for me. This natural light photo I was spoiled by that huge blown highlight on her shoulder. A pity is, I think it would have been quite a good picture otherwise. Although I do think the background is to blood, I'm almost too embarrassed to show you this. It's a good example of what not to do. It's completely ruined by the dappled sunlight and look at the light hitting her nose. But you know, these are the types of things you need to be aware off. Get the light wrong and you could end up with a mess like this. Here's a quick comparison of the off camera flash natural live images. You can see how under exposing the ambient light has helped to reduce the highlights on her back and shoulders. I much prefer the off camera flash photo. It just feels softer and warmer to my eyes. Anyway, that's the end of this short third session. Next up is the final one with Pepper, where we leave the waterside park
10. CP Location Session Pippa 04: Yeah, we were on our way to the next location, which is Mawr Industrial. And I've just spotted this location by a local Tesco supermarket. So let's look like a great background. A swell as some top shades. So I just thought I'd take a few shots here. Pippa, as we were passing, haven't got any video to show you. And I love that background with a graphic, the apples and so on thing I turned out pretty well. So here we are at the next location in this Siri's and location session on this is Mawr Industrial. We've got some grungy containers here on people, a suitably dressed in a grungy sort of outfit, looking great. The sun is behind us, so people gotta lovely, smooth light on her face, No sign, analyze. And I thought I try a couple of shots first of all, shooting alongside the container, getting really close to it to get those kind of shapes and patterns in there. And then once I've done that, I'll maybe take one from straight ahead, using lots of negative space. So, yeah, I'm getting very I'm getting very, very close to the container so that the foreground would be out of our focus because I'm on F 1.7 Onda. What am I about? Of thousands of a second. I'm in manual motor a moment. I'm gonna go back a tiny bit further. It's looking good right now. You see how paper had a hand on a short there on? Because it's quite close up. I chop their hand off so it been better. If you can bring your hand up there little bit, that's good. I'm gonna go further back. Getting closer to the containers. Yeah, These of what? Well, I would say notice the different ways that she's leaning on the containers first with the elbow, and then we're back to the container and then with just a shoulder against it. Leaning on things does make posing a bit easier for this last shot. I moved a couple of feet away from a container to get a different angle. Notice how paper is now kind of encapsulated within the container, whereas in the first few shots, the end of the container doesn't extend to be on her body. Okay, so those with some shots shooting alongside the container Now I'm going to come down to the fun. Just shoot straight on with lots of negative space as well, which focuses your attention onto the subject. Also, because we've got a sun shining from behind. I might just point the camera to water son slightly to try and pick up some flair into the shot. And I think that might work well with this type of shot. Let's give it a try. I changed to a four here to try to keep that sign a bit sharper. I think the flare works quite well with this type of shop, but bear in mind that you do lose a bit of contrast when the sun enters the lens. Here's the original image, and as you can see, I've made the photo darker and increase the contrast shooting in manual mode. And once I set the exposure, it doesn't change. That's why I'm only showing the exposure details for the first image. Okay, great. We found another lovely grungy container in this industrial area, and this is really awesome good textures on it as well, So I started by shooting in natural light. Shooting along the edge of the container actually might go straight on as well Onda there must. Which over Teoh off camera flash being in the ambient light down and just lighting for a flip up with I, you know, using off about. Anyway. Um, where were we? Yes, I'm okay. Let's choose someone. Flipper. Okay, that's your new name. Now back to F 1.7 again to try and blur the foreground a little. I'll ask Pepper to keep her hands reasonably high so that I didn't chop them off. I switched to a lower angle here for a different perspective. Now, this could look good. Is making the subject seem a little bit more kind of powerful, Good for corporate type images as well. Just make sure your subject isn't leaning back a bit. Otherwise their head may look too small. Okay, so we've just used natural light, and I've now reduced exposure by two stops to dark and everything. Bring out more of the texture on this container because it's really nice. Green and brown and rusty, old grungy texture. So that looks nice on it. Look better with slightly less exposure. I'm just gonna like paper with this flash, which is on a 32nd power. Now I've got an nd filter on again because I want to use. I would like to have used a high shutter speed, but I'm restricted to 60th 1/60 of a second on this particular camera, some shooting F 1.7 1 60 of the circle of a second on die. So 200. So let's give it a try. See how it looks? Yes, these off camera flash images were quite well on. As I said, I use the neutral density filter on the lens, which meant I could use an aperture of F 1.7 on shutter speed of 1 1/60 of a second. Now, without the Indy filter, I have had to use high speed sink with a shutter speed of oh, out around 8/100 of a second. The flash I had with me wasn't high speeches incapable. So I was only left with the N D field to option, which was fine without being the city end of this sequence on location. Have you enjoyed it and found it useful? Thank you very much. Thank you. In the next video, bother now,
11. 17 ideas & tips for getting wonderful expressions & smiles from your subjects : hi again when it comes to portrays, has an old saying that I always remember expression over perfection because no matter how great your exposure, you're lighting or composition. If your subjects don't have good expressions, the whole image may be ruined. Every photographer faces the real challenge of getting natural expressions from people on, especially getting them to small. Naturally, I think that's because we see faces all the time. We've all become expert at detecting these four smiles. So here's a few tips I picked up over the years. Obviously, you have to consider your audience and use an idea that's appropriate to start off with. Then you generally want to approach your subjects with a warm smile and friendly demeanor, whoever they are. But especially if you don't know them, it's important not to rush into taking her photos. Have a chat first, get to know them, compliment them on something, maybe their hair, clothing or jewelry. Ask him about themselves and so on. Teenagers can sometimes be a problem, especially if they're a bit shy. I sometimes ask them if they bought been bought along kicking and screaming by their parents or whether they came voluntarily But if they're not very communicative, don't push it. Just leave them alone and come back to them later. What a way you have to re care for with very young Children, especially at first if you don't know them, because sometimes you can start talking to them on their burst into tears at the strange new person in their face. But once I see you talking happily to apparent, they're usually calm down. One thing I never usually do is just a standard. Please smile for the camera. As I said before, that usually result in a fake smile and it shows. So instead, I might ask for a cheeky little smile. Or, I might say, quickly in succession, Give me a sad face. Now give me an angry face. Now a city face. Now give me a happy face, and then once they're finished, they generally have a small, natural smile on their face, takes most to the next level by saying Give me a big small no bigger than that. Even bigger Now, even bigger. Get a bit silly until their faces up. Remember, as in many of these tips, even though your carry on snapping during the silliness. They probably probably won't beekeepers what you're really looking for. Those natural smiles occur once the city nurse dies down a bit. Ask for a fatal off, maybe, say saying something like, Let's see who's got the biggest louder, silliest fake laugh on on the count of 3123 go. How you deliver the directions is important, so make it big and fun again. Although you should carry on snapping, those images will not usually be keepers. The whole point here is not to capture the fake laugh, but to get the resulting real laughs and smiles that will occur naturally. Once things settle down, you need to make the request with enthusiasm to urge the mom. One of the keys to good group posing is to get the heads close together. It's easy to compose a shot that makes people look like a tight unit, especially with kids. It's not always easy to get them to go along with it on. Some people just don't get close enough, especially if you put siblings together. So told him to switch their cheeks together on real close. But don't stop there. Tell them to keep swishing tighter and tighter and tighter. Make sure to keep your camera at the ready for the moment. Like after they release the tight squish, you bounce to get some good smiles. Another one that could be quite effective for family interactions is to ask. Ask them who's a city? One in the family and get them to laugh. Laugh at the silly one. Sometimes they will look at someone different, and after a second of bewilder hman, they will start laughing. Or sometimes a city one will go completely over the top with some kind of exaggerated laugh . Or maybe they have big reaction that won't look natural. Pointing as well doesn't look too good. So if they're doing that, just ask them to put their hands down onto giggle quietly to themselves. Ask everyone to look at each other. This can sometimes produce great images. Generally speaking, people would initially make a face that the person they're looking at maybe they'll stick out their tongues. But once again, you should carry on shooting, knowing that the images won't be used. But eventually there will be natural smiles on their the images you want. You can continue by yelling. Look at mom or look at Dad to Maybe after using the previous tip if you're shooting. A couple asked for one of them to look at the other person on for the other person to look at the camera. Then just maybe told jokingly about the person looking at the camera or isn't he handsome? I bet you two never argue. Have you been taking handsome lessons? How did you put up with him? That's everything. And because the person looking at the camera doesn't know what the other one is doing, this will usually get a good laugh. Using the most corny voice you could muster. Ever ask a couple to steer lovingly into each other's eyes? Your voice and the situation will likely turn it into a smile or a laugh. Instead, try asking people to stare each other, but told them there no allowed to laugh. Usually they can't help themselves and start laughing. After a few seconds, ask a couple of people to sit back to back and then get one of them to push the other one. The other person should try to hold them back. You can get some great natural laughs doing this. I use it most of the time with youngsters. Okay, if you're easily offended. Local Why now? This is one where you have to judge your old jeans carefully when shooting groups with Children. I used to have good success with a remote control fart machine farts always funny. Once people would pose nicely, I'd hit the button a few times and say something like, Who did that? Was that you? Oh, there he goes again. How mood. Sometimes I'd give the remote to a youngster and whisper to him to click it when no one was expecting. You can pick that. You can pick up those little machines quite cheaply on eBay. What about getting them to do a tickle fight? That's almost like cheating, isn't it? But it works so well. Autumn care. Tickle fights usually devolve into a scrum on the floor, so bear in mind, your perfect post will usually unravel. But that's okay. The last will be worth worth it. Another technique that come work world just to get a natural expression is to ask the subject to look down on. Then up on Ben's smile on the count of three. Get them to look down at their feet and told him, When you counter three, look up at me and smile. I'm not sure why this works probably could, because you're catching them at a moment when I aren't thinking about their expressions. Once people opposed nicely, take your normal photo, but then ask them too hard or put their arm around the person x adom. You can get some really nice natural smiles in the hugging photos. Sometimes, though, you get a real huggers that they will turn right around and give mom or dad a real bear hug . And although it's a nice thing to do in real life, it doesn't work well for a photo. So just wait for them to turn around or ask him. Teoh hug normally, if there's enough space are so family to walk towards you but not to look at the camera. That's quite important. Instead, they should look at each other or to look, just look, abound or towards the light, if possible, as they walk. If there's Children involved and you have the technical know how, get them to run towards you. But Assam toe hold hands so that the faster runners don't get ahead and they stay. All stay in the line. Actually, many people look down when they're running, so ask them to keep looking ahead or to the side. You can't really ask a child to say four or five years old to smile. If you do, you get something like this. No, With young Children, it's all about play. So get the parents to play with them. Maybe you can do something. A simple was rolling a ball or throwing a ball and asking them to catch it. I found bubbles work quite well to keep them in one place. You could put them inside a hula hope, lying on the ground and then play with them a bit. At least then they're standing in one spot. Ask everyone to shout stinky sausages. That often gets a good reaction, but the parents should also join in. Ask him to jump up and down, take some while they're in the air, but also after you have landed. That's usually when the expressions are best. This one works well. Ask a parent or sibling to stand behind you as you take the photos that make funny faces or do stupid things. One thing that I haven't mentioned is telling jokes. I started off trying this but gave up. I don't think it works out well unless you tailor it perfectly to your audience. And if they don't find it funny, it's just embarrassing. So there you have it. Some ideas to help people smile and to get great expressions and reactions for a photo, be confident. And don't be afraid to make yourself look a bit silly. It's all part of the fun. And, of course, it's the results of matter. Generally speaking, it's not what you say or do that will get someone to smile is how you say it and how you do it delivered the wrong way. All of these ideas could fall completely flat. But with the right approach, you can make people smile by saying, Well, just about anything. You have to kind of make it a performance, and you have to put your whole heart into it. And of course, you certainly wouldn't want to do all of these in one session. It would probably take ages, and your subjects would wind up in an exhausted heap and finally remember to consider your audience, see how they're reacting to different suggestions. Some people love to get silly. Others will oblige, but still a bit uncomfortable. You don't want to force. It may be just chat or start easily and gradually ramp up the silliness. If you don't think something is working, let the moment go and just move on to something else. You'll soon find a sweet spot for each session. Anyway. Give it some of these a try and see how you get on Bye for now.
12. Using lines and top shade outside an office in city centre: Hi again in this video, I'm going to do a kind of a nervous location session with the lovely M here on we're in the city of Milton Keynes in the UK It's quite a modern area of the city, so I'm looking for a kind of nice composition with lifelines, reflections good light on DSO on. Now it's a little bit noisy because we got cars going past. So I'm hoping you can hear me. But we started off in this area here, which I thought we could use these lines. Maybe listen, reflections on the window. So let's have a go. See how it looks. Okay, then, to start off with, I thought I'd shoot along this wall here picking up the leading leading line, so I probably get quite close to the wall. Now, as far as the settings of concerned, I'm using aptitude clarity on. I'm going to spot meat on her face on. So I'm at F 1.7 on die. So 200. So the spot meter and should give me why. Good reading EMS got lovely power skin. If you don't mind me saying that, which is great. Which means that the spot meter might give me a slightly darker setting, so I might have to use exposure conversation just to brighten up the image. That's how you get on by. Okay? I'm getting really close to the wall here. Put em on 1/3. Pick up those lines. Yeah, I think this is great. The lines helped to draw your eyes into the photo to all gems face on the spot meter and worked well. But I did have to use nor 0.7 exposure compensation because she's quite power, as I mentioned. And the initial exposure was a little too dark. Now I've covered this in another course, but spot meeting exposures will very depending on how light or dark subject skin is. Notice the light pattern on M's face. You know, you know by now that I love short lighting and this is perfect. The side of her face nearest the camera is in shadow, obviously, because that's a side closest to the wall. That's quite nice. One. I think looking down actually looks Looks looks better. So looking up, try that. Okay, I know this is subjective, but as I mentioned to him just now, I really don't like the poses you did where she leant back and faced up. It's made even worse because she's looking to the side, causing us to see too much white in her eyes. So this is a foul for May. This is a very nice pose, isn't it? Elbow against the wall. Looking out, I noticed the lovely, curvy shape she's made with her body by pushing her hips out. I like that a lot. I also noticed he's on 1/3 in these photos. I moved as close as possible to the wall in this shot. It's quite effective, isn't it? But because M was no longer contained within the wall, I had to be careful with the background, placing her carefully in the gap, avoiding those pillars. Now, if you try this technique out in the open, be careful to avoid any clutter or even white sky in the background that can spoil it. Okay, I've just moved along a little bit on Duh. You know, we have these mirrored glass doors here, so we'll give that a try again, shooting alongside the wall to get a nice reflection right away. We have got this cover here, which is giving us a beautiful top shade. That's why I've chosen this area so that we could look out into the internal life or M can look out into the light. Okay, great, let's try a few shots. I'm not quite there with this shop. The main problem is we can only see the back of her head in the reflection, plus the door hand, always a bit distracting. And to capital. There's a reflection of a man walking with his shopping bag. That's it perfect there because I could get a face both sides. I changed the position and my angle slightly. So we'll now see her whole face being reflected, which is much better. But there was no way to avoid the door handle, which spores it a little for May, so there was nothing else for it, but to photo shop it out only took a couple of minutes. That's much better. Anyway, that's the end of the first session in this urban city chapter. Stay tuned for the next one bye for now,
13. Creating great portraits in a courtyard outside an office building: So here's our next location area, just behind several officers. It's really deserted around here. It's amazing what you can find in terms of locations just by keeping an eye out when going into the city. So I thought would start taking them against this green wall. Here. It's got a lovely texture on it as well, although the light isn't really showing you up to its best, but it looks pretty good. And EMS got this lovely red dress. Red and green go well together. So I'm gonna shoot from straight on. I've set the camera up in manual mode for this one, and I'm several F 2.8 500 of a second. I so 200 I've got apply and lens on here. It's a 25 mil. So I won this 4/3 camera s secret. Vernoff 50 mil lens. Andi, I chose this because I want to do some close ups. That's always some Foreland shots as well. So give it a try. Come walk into the middle. Okay? Admittedly, these aren't the most exciting photos in the world, but the light is nice and her red dress does contrast well with the green wall texture on walls and buildings look best when the light is from the side. Now, we didn't have that here, so I added some contrast in photo shop to enhance the texture. Okay, I've switch lenses to my 42.5 prime lens still shooting of 2.8. But one thing I forgot to mention, of course, is the fabulous light here because we've got this top shade discover and I'm always looking for that. Wherever I take photos, I'm always looking to get great pictures. Beautiful light are using top shade if I am out in the open and I don't have any top shade on either user reflector or maybe a little bit of fill flash. But you know, this is probably the best kind of light that you can get outs outside is when you got a covering subtracting a light from above. So let's try a few close ups. Now use a bit of negative space over to the right of a You see how good the lies. Yeah, it's just nice and smooth and flattering. I think the close up shots look a lot better. You can really appreciate the light on her face against the texture on the wall with these shots. Also, landscape oriented photos have more impact when viewed within a video because they feel just the screen space better. Well, we've just moved six feet along on. We've got this nice grungy area here, which I thought would look quite nice, especially with a red dress as well against the Grey. I think M should be standing, but I might try some sitting ones as well. Settings are F 2.8 5/100 of a second. I'm in manual mode. I mean, the light isn't really changing, so there's no point in me using Apertura party every time I press the shutter button, it's gonna is going to recheck the exposure. So once I have the exposure now, I might as well just carry on using the same exposure, right? Okay, I may switch to the wider lens as well to do some full length ones, but I start off with the 42.5, which is the equivalent of 85 mil lens, you know, in the old money, as they say, or in old film terms. What kind of passed me over this way. That's it? Yeah. I like these with a kind of graphic elements on the wall. But why I don't like is that is that black stripe coming out of her head? So I've cheated. And we moved it in photo shop and converted it to black and white. I did actually notice it during the shoe and asked them to move over a little. So here's one of those two. I think I prefer these in black and white, but I like both se was best. Why is what about sitting on this? You sit in out of that way with one leg tucked under the other with that work with that skirt? Yeah, right. Yeah, the hill. I know you just saw. In that case, you said I'd be like this. That's it. Really like seated poses. But I don't think these ones work that great. You can see from the video that Emma trouble getting into the positions that I wanted. These would have been much better had she been wearing trousers. The short skirt on very high hills made things more difficult. So we stayed in the same area, just moved down slightly. We've got this nice office block here with were not nice office block, but it's an office block with moods windows, and I thought we could try and just take some of them against those windows. The problem is, I wanted to try and get a nice women like her here because the sun was out earlier. But the sun's gone in now. So what I've done is I've set up a flash behind her. And if the sun doesn't come out again on when you use off camera flash to fire the flash through here, I'm going to kind of also come quite low and shoot up against the against the windows. The other problem is we haven't got the benefit atop shade. Now we've lost it on DSO. What I think I might do is use a reflector on them can actually hold the reflector. It's a bit too far away from a toe hold so she could just hold it. It's a cloudy day cloudy now, so we probably want to use the white side of the reflect on Let me go and get it. So this is what will use. So it's a white side on one side, silver on the other. Um, actually, the silver side, maybe. OK, it may be a little bit too right. You can see the you can see the effect now what? Emma's face. But I think the silver said the white silver side. Maybe a bit tube like, but Well, I don't know. Blinder. Get try. You hold that second. So I'm going to switch the flash on. Make sure it's ah. Is pointing out a hair. Let's have a go. Is that pointed at you? I'm giving out there. Okay, so the flashes on on the flashes on a night power if 1.71 if 1.7 1/60 of a second because that's my maximum sing speed on this particular camera on it would normally be too black to use that those settings. But I've got an n d. Feel time here now to be juicy exposure so that I could shoot F 1.7 that I want to blow out those windows. Okay, having said over that, I'll take a few shots. I think they've been Matt, maybe to try the other side. Yeah, I think that's better. Okay. It Yeah. I'm really pleased with these shots against the office windows. You can see that the reflector has really punched some beautiful light into her face on the light from the flash coming through. Her hair has worked very well, too. It's a great technique worth giving a try. I change the camera angle slightly from that for this last shot to shoot against windows without cloud reflections. So it's more blue. It looks great, even if I say so myself. Okay, so that's the end of this little session. We're going to move away now. Try and find another location.
14. Continuing the urban session with Em, this time outside another office block: Hello again. What? We've just moved across the road, Found another little area by some office blocks. You've got these big windows here, pillows on the left. So I thought maybe she shoot down towards the end of this little tunnel like area here, and that will kind of go off into a vanishing important. Any problem is we've got this son on the on the ground which I don't particularly like, but may have the dark in that down in post processing. So this give this a try. I'm on F 1.7 again, 42.5 lens just trying to blur the background a little bit. And I quite like these lines as well the vertical lines of the of the windows. So I have a few shots on outside of town. Yeah, this location is quite similar to the one in the first session with them shooting down a kind of corridor outside an office building. But this time we've got pillars and windows on the other side rather than pillars with a war on the other side. I wanted to make use of those vertical lines. So M is only taking up a small proportion of the flame with lots of negative space positioning myself and her in the right place. I've made sure I got a good reflection, moved in a bit closer for some of these shots and so lost the reflection. But you can see how great the light is on her face. Notice that in most of the images, there's light and shadow on her face, and she has a head turned to her left, even if very slightly so that I shot into the shadow side of her face for short lighting. Yeah, I asked her to take her jacket off. Just a very to photo's a little. I think that's a really good look with that lovely red dress notice I kept essentially between the walls and pillars. It's always worth exploring different camera angles. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but I think it works well here. I got very low in this shot and placed her in the corner, and it's turned out OK, but this can only work well if you've got an interesting background toe work with in the first place. Okay, well, now, move on to another location
15. Continuing the urban session with Em, this time outside another office block: again. We've moved location stay in Milton Keynes. Onda. We just found this grungy kind of area with air conditioning and the order noise, by the way, which I hope you could put up with for the time being, we found s a on the back of one of the large cinema complexes. I quite like this so that they really want to some to be shining. To be honest, we might be able to make use of order kind of graphics that the sun is created with these lines and shapes. So I thought, if we use this corner here as a kind of on edge, so three image will go off this way on will come off this way as well. That might give us quite a nice look. I'm shooting. If 5.6, I don't really need anything to be out of focus. And that has been a son on M's face here, so I'll probably turned around. We don't really want the sun on the face or shoulders, because that's gonna gonna spoiled it. So we'll probably move around a little bit before start shooting. Just wondering where M should move to now. Really, She just comes around to the side. There, you see the light. It is nice and smooth on the face. We don't really have the benefit top shape, but we've got quite a lot of protection from the light from this structure That looks looks pretty good. I'm not too keen on this really bright area over here, but I might be able to dial it down a bit in the editing. Yeah, because the sun is shining on the structure that we got his great shadows as well, really accentuating the graphic type of effect I really like That way. These are great. This, by the way, is a 25 mil lens, so it's a little bit wider. They wanted to get the light of the lines. The lines in Andi was on manual mode of 5.6 13 hundreds of a second. I s 0 200 Yeah, I think these have turned out great. It was a bit concerned at first that there was just too much sun on the building. But I darken those areas down a bit and the light and shade look quite called on the shutter type structure. Because there, Mr Nick on the corner. One aspect of the building that I really like is the vertical edge of the structure and the way the walls of the building go off in two different directions. Now that's quite any idea when using a building from a background, especially when the light is different on each side. Here's a shot that I took afterwards. I was trying to get some light coming through here and also to emphasize her bosom on. That's what. Well, I think I'll change the lens and maybe take a few more with the lines going off into the distance. I've just take my mind. I've kept the same lens on, so I've still got the 25 mil equivalent to 50 mil in old film terms that that limbs. I don't want to shoot a long ways with these lines. It's looking very good. As I said before, it's always worth exploring other angles and compositions, and this one works well with the lines going off into the distance. No, Sister M is on 1/3 shot. Wouldn't have worked so well if she was more central. Uh, now images for her hand through her hair in this image. And can you spot the big mistake? Yeah, it looks like she's lost the bottom half of her arm. So it looks like a stump. A big foul here on my part. So that's the end of this fourth session in an urban environment with the lovely em. So that's about it. Thanks very much for being a great model. How have you enjoyed it? And found it useful. I think we did show that you can get some great pictures in an urban environment just by wandering around looking for these graphic elements. The lions Reflections on the light. So see you in the next video Bye for now.
16. More tips on TopShade, my favourite type of natural light: hi again if you've watched Part one of my become a better photographer. COls. You'll know that for portrait, I'm a big fan of top shade or open shades, as it's sometimes called. If you haven't watched it, how dare you? Okay, I'll admit I'm a bit disappointed and upset, but you know I'm not one to bear a garage anyway. In a video on that course, I showed you how you can get a lovely, flattering type of light just by positioning your subject under any type of structure that eliminates the light coming from above. Now that could be a non archway adorning the porch of your house or, as in this case, the up and over doors of my garage. In fact, anything that prevents the light coming from above. And that's because our eye sockets normally prevent some of the light from hitting the area around the eyes, which then dark and your subject's eyes and emphasizes the shadows or bags under the eyes on top. Shade really does work beautifully, but as well as providing a more flattering light, you can also use it to get more creative type of images with moody lighting patterns and that's what I want to try out today. But before I get into that, in case you haven't watched, my other videos are, just do a quick recap to show you how top shade creates a wonderful light on your subject's face. So I'm here with Carlo again, and we've got a block, cloudy day. And even though is bright, you could still see the shadows underneath allies and that's being caused by high sockets. Stopping the light from coming from directly above now issued a walk backwards underneath the garage doors for over in. Try not to trip over about. There will increase exposure because obviously it is a bit darker in there and look at that . She's now got a beautiful light on a face on. Those shadows have practically disappeared, so let's not try taking this one step further on doing some more dramatic type of shots. But before we do those shots I just wanted to repeat. That experiment is there are wars around my garage which affect the light, and you can see the effect better starting out in the open. You can really see here how the light improves on Carla's face as she moves inside. Okay, so that was just a quick recap on how you can use top show to give you a more flattering type of light. What want to try and do now is to get a slightly more dramatic light. Andi, put up this background here, which is the last a light background on the walls of my God. You're not particularly pretty. So this produces a better a better background on. We've got the lovely light coming from the side there. Carla, if you look out towards the light, you can now see that hint of light on a cheek and formed a nice kind of pattern on the right side of her cheek. And if you think back to the lighting patterns video, this is going to give us rember type light in. So let's take a couple of shots, see how it looks. - If Carly would look into the guy watch, No, not go Art studio. If you would look into you, would see that we would now have broad lighting because most of the light is going to be hitting the other side of her face. I don't think that will look as good but let's give it a try. Okay, so this is broad lighting where the side of the face closest of the camera is aside being lit. Look carefully at the light on Carla's face in this comparison, and you can judge for yourselves which type of lighting you prefer, if any. Okay, so that shows you how you can use top shape to get more flattering light by shooting from outside into the area with your subject facing straight out. Or you can get more of a short, light or broad light pattern by moving into the area and shooting from inside. One thing to bear in mind is you have to shoot. You have to expose for the for the highlights you have to expose from the left side of the face. If you don't do that, then that side of the face is going to be completely blown out, ruining the photo so you may have Teoh use exposure compensation to reduce C exposure. Maybe about minus 11 stop, but give it a few shots of news. You can use trial and error to see how is looking but exposed for the left side of the face So that's about it. Have you enjoyed that film? Thank you. Carla on, uh, see you in the next video Bye for now.
Bernie Raffe AMPA, Award winning photographer and teacher
